Saturday, April 30, 2011

Better than a Transcript: Three Live-blogs of the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting Pt. II (BRK.B; BRK.A)

Next up, Morningstar they are now in the Q&A session, scroll up from the bottom:

by Gregg Warren at 4/30/2011 1:59 PM

Munger: I could spend an entire course talking about GM. All the highs and lows of the business and the impact it had on the stock price, et al.

by Paul Larson edited by Jason Stipp at 1:59 PM

Munger: Costco became the best business in its category by using meritocracy. Passed along cost advantages to customers very quickly. One store in Korea doing $400 million in sales. Right management, ethics, diligence. Costco's success is quite rare.

by Gregg Warren at 4/30/2011 1:56 PM

Carol Loomis: Can you highlight companies that made good moves or bad moves that could serve as a lesson for investors?

by Gregg Warren at 4/30/2011 1:55 PM

Buffett: You can probably leave it out when judging the returns, but when looking at the allocation of capital towards these businesses you have to consider it. When focusing on returns on intangible assets you're not going to amortize that goodwill. When looking at a deal like LZ, you have to judge us on the amount of goodwill we were willing to pay for as part of the purchase price.

by Gregg Warren at 4/30/2011 1:51 PM

Shareholder: How should we think about goodwill when looking at returns on intangible assets?

by Paul Larson at 4/30/2011 1:50 PM

Munger: What are our worst business?
Buffett: Small business without potential of getting big. Also, we’ve not created major earnings power with retail businesses.

by Paul Larson at 4/30/2011 1:45 PM

Sorkin: Buffett has praised Ajit as a possible next successor. Example of exemplary behavior?
Buffett: Never saw anything he did I thought I could do better.

by Gregg Warren at 4/30/2011 1:44 PM

Munger: Warren has said that he will likely stick around until the Class A shares are split.

by Gregg Warren edited by Jason Stipp at 4/30/2011 1:44 PM

Buffett: In essence, Class A shares already split 1500 to 1 when we introduced Class B shares. So no interest in doing it again.

by Gregg Warren at 4/30/2011 1:43 PM

Shareholder: Would Bershire consider splitting its Class A shares? Pros? Cons? What would be long-tem effect?

by Paul Larson at 4/30/2011 1:43 PM

Buffett: Proposal for high-speed rail in California called for 800 miles of track that would have cost $43 billion. Berkshire bought BNSF in its entirety--22,000 miles, 13,000 bridges--for roughly this amount. The replacement value of BNSF is enormous.

by Paul Larson at 4/30/2011 1:40 PM

Buffett: The best are those that require little capital investment, and have strong position to increase prices with inflation, such as Sees. The worst will be ones with fixed returns, like utilities.

by Paul Larson edited by Jason Stipp at 4/30/2011 1:38 PM

Quick: Given environment of high inflation, which of Berkshire's businesses will perform best? Worst?